Brown has been out of work for almost 12 months after leaving Preston North End in December last year but reportedly watched Hartlepool's reserves on Monday night with a proposed new backroom staff.

And on Monday morning Brown had admitted he was ready to drop down into League One in order to 'prove himself' again and the chance to link-up with Hartlepool - where he began his footballing career and played over 200 games - holds huge appeal.

"I have spoken to a number of football clubs during my time out since Preston and I have had one or two very good offers, but it doesn't matter where you are in life you have to consider your own situation," he told Sky Sports News Radio.

"What I have looked at in the main is the amount of Championship clubs that become available and I have not really been considered for them so I think the time is right to maybe prove myself again and go back down a division and grab a hold of a challenge, get my hands dirty as a coach or a manager and try and run a football club to the best of my ability to show people I am not scared of a challenge such as a Hartlepool United.

"It is a former club of mine and I have spoken to them on two, maybe three occasions and we will see what this week brings.

"I don't think you can ever be under any illusions when you're a new manager going into a club, invariably you will inherit a problem otherwise there would not be a vacancy and that is the case at Hartlepool United and I am under no illusions and I am not kidding myself or anyone else."

Brown admits that just saving Hartlepool, currently bottom of the table, would be an achievement.

"It is a big ask and it can't be an over-night success, but to survive this year would be a massive challenge but obviously not impossible," he said.

"I am a North East lad, I have left the North East in 1985 and I still have the strong accent as I go up there on a regular basis. I remember the days in 1979 when I began playing and the old memories of derby battles with Darlington and I have great memories of that."

Readers' Comments

I

t's wrong to be making a joke out of Bender's name at the expense of gay people. It's the kind of childish, uncivilised thing that Football365 would deride and ridicule if it was another media outlet saying. Why is there a need for jokes like this? Does it make your writers feel like men? F365 might suggest that I 'lighten up', but it is genuinely traumatic for people who have been oppressed all their lives to be the butt of jokes, and to be told...

ou can't blame De Gea for wanting to leave, he has enough to do in front of goal as it is as well as taking on the role of Man Utd's version of Derek Acorah in trying to contact and organise a defence that isn't there.